TGS - #58

A/N - Updates about my demise have been greatly exaggerated!

So, I had a little oopsie moment with my laptop and it spent about 3 days in the service centre before it was repaired right in front of me in little more than 30 minutes. The pressure of me standing there, just waiting for my laptop must have gotten to the poor guy.

Anywho, let the updates BEGIN!!

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

The skies above New York [After the dissolution of SHIELD] 

–Jack Sullivan– 

He floated above New York, clad in his giant green Gundam, deterring any criminal from doing bad deeds. He made sure that he kept an eye on the more vulnerable sections of the city, to make sure that the gang members knew when to stay indoors and away from the innocent folks of the city.

In the meantime, his barriers worked overtime to filter out every single outlet of the city's sewage into the ocean. He wondered how much trash he had already picked out of the city's supply when he, or rather, his barriers detected a very interesting sight happening.

Somehow, against all odds, Killgrave, the psychopath mind controller was eating food in a restaurant in Harlem. His advanced control over his barriers meant that he could just summon them, have them spread out in different parts of the city, and then process the feedback from the barriers as they continued to roam around the city.

One such barrier somehow came across the very purple form of Killgrave as he calmly dined in a small corner diner, with–oh…

His form rocketed through the air, the Gundam dissipating as he zigzagged through the buildings, his barriers and his enhanced constitution allowing him to ignore the immense strain such actions put on his body. In a matter of minutes, he reached the site of the diner.

As soon as he came to a halt, a curtain of silence pervaded throughout his vision as people came to a halt. Then they began pointing at him, some began recording it. He grimaced internally, as he wondered on how to resolve the issue.

Killgrave was currently encased in a full body cast made up of his barriers, stopping him from speaking. In fact, his knowledge of the body made him puncture Killgrave's muscles in such a way that aside from breathing, he would not be able to do anything. No, speaking and controlling people for him, no sir.

The question remained - how to free the ones already under his control?

He slowly landed on the ground, waving at the people nearby. Even though he was breathing the same air as the psychopath monster Killgrave, he was very cautious in doing so. The barrier keeping Killgrave contained was as airtight as it could be. 

The second he can safely disperse the public and contain Kilgrave's mind control victims, Killgrave will find himself devoid of his heartbeat and his head. He wondered if killing him swiftly was too merciful or not. Nah, the longer he is alive, the more chances of him somehow escaping and becoming a pain in the ass later on for him.

He used his powers to seal off the diner, taking stock of the situation inside, and making sure that the rest of the public never saw what was happening inside. It was disgusting and would surely traumatize some kids if they watched real-life alive people contorting their bodies in impossible shapes, trying to maintain the same pose as if they were dolls and not alive beings. 

His barriers had already covered the other inhabitants of the restaurant as well, hoping to lighten the burden on their muscles and bodies. Thankfully, it was not rush hour and the settlement was not very popular as well, so there were only 6 victims of Killgrave, including one Jessica Jones who was trembling.

Either she was trying to break free of Kilgrave's commands, which was more probable or she was afraid. He bet on the former option.

He could see the police arriving and establishing a cordoned off area around the diner. If he remembered correctly, Kilgrave's powers had some sort of time out when it came to people following his commands. Increased exposure might lengthen the time period of the commands but initial exposure should wear off pretty quickly.

He said "should" because he didn't really focus much on the Defenders portion of the MCU where they established Jessica Jones' backstory. That was more street level stuff and in his defense, the higher ups at Marvel did favour the bigger galaxy level star studded stuff more than the TV portion of the Cinematic Universe.

He looked at Jones and after making sure that Kilgrave was completely unconscious, due to the lack of air in the tight space he had found himself in, he opened a portal and dropped him into it. The portal led to the medical wing of his ship, which was locked. 

Nothing in this ship would open without his confirmed presence in it. The ship used advanced biometrics that tracked the energy signature of a person and his energy signature was going to be very hard to copy for others, save for the Hulk maybe, depending on the accuracy of the sensors installed in the ship that was gifted to him by Nova Prime.

"Now, how do I clear this up?" He asked himself as he found himself in a very peculiar situation. The Red Dust used to free Widows' from their mind control was still very much far away, he reminded himself to warn Romanoff about the continued survival of Dreykov and the operations of the Black Widows. 

The second option was to let it all run its course, but that had its own set of concerns, mainly him not allowing anybody to suffer a second more than they had to. 

Letting Tony or Wakanda anywhere near mind control was a big no no in his opinion, especially since they would both be very wary of such a thing due to Loki's shenanigans during the Invasion of New York. 

SHIELD was no more so that was out of the question. All he could do was….he cast the mild sleepiness spell on the entire diner, watching as most of the middle aged people immediately fell asleep, the younger ones following suit immediately, leaving only him and Jessica Jones awake in the entire restaurant. 

Of course, he made sure to soften the impact as all of the people were now asleep and thus, temporarily free from Kilgrave's mental commands. He didn't know if just sleeping would restore but he doubted that would work. If it truly did work, Jessica would not have had to spend months under that Monster's control.

He looked at Jessica as her shoulders had relaxed but her eyes were still wide, looking at him with a multitude of complex emotions, the prime of which was relief. He sighed and cast the spell a dozen more times before Jessica finally fell asleep as well, her head gently resting on the dining table.

He took a look around the mess that Kilgrave, that idiot man child had created, and sighed, suddenly tired of the whole thing. People messing with other people without any regard for their lives was something that was always sad to see. What was even sadder was things like these would become even more commonplace as more and more enhanced people started popping out of the woodworks. 

There was the whole Ms.Marvel thing that would happen in the future. Then there would be other enhanced people as well, who were most decidedly not Inhumans. Inhumans he could deal with.

The method to awaken them was not decentralised, not at the moment at least. Once Coulson and the others at SHIELD came into contact with Inhumans, he would move in instantly and confiscate all the Diviners he could get his hands on, to make sure that the renegade Inhumans don't spread the Terrigen crystals in the planet's oceans, giving rise to a number of Inhuman awakenings, most of whom would be very visible.

Ah, there he went, going on a tangent. 

He shook his head, banishing the hundreds of thoughts about the future, and walked towards the entrance of the diner. He reached his barrier and without even pausing for a step, he walked through the barrier, the layers of the barrier unfurling around him and then reforming as he walked through the barrier, making the illusion of him walking through the barrier.

It looked quite fluid and badass, he hoped, but it was quite difficult to pull off, at least for his previous self. As he was now, he was now much more in tune with his powers, elevating his levels of control to never before seen levels.

He came out of the diner and found the area cordoned off to civilians as police coordinated the efforts to keep whatever was happening inside, well, inside. He could also spy some suits in the background as well, probably FBI or some other three letter agency but they seemed content in letting the NYPD take control of the scene.

Well, they would get what the NYPD had in the end anyway so why bother, he mused to himself. His arrival didn't go unnoticed as one of the officers looked back, turning back to give some more orders before turning around to run towards him.

In turn, he let his barrier fall apart, revealing his now teenaged face to the police. That made the officer almost miss a step as he all but ran towards him. 

"There was an incident here, the special kind, you see. I have taken care of it obviously. Now, the victims need a bit more specialised care than I have access to, at the moment. I assume you have already been contacted by federal agencies," He asked the lead officer, as his gaze ran over the various suits standing in front of nondescript black SUVs. 

So typical.

"Uh, Yeah. I already have my captain breathing down my neck. Told me to all but kiss their feet," The officer muttered with a tinge of bitterness.

He nodded at the officer and after taking a look at the now sleeping inhabitants of the diner, chose to do something, a leap of faith, if you will.

His finger twitched as the curtain that was surrounding the restaurant….expanded. The police officer, the feds, as well as all the civilians in the area braced for impact, one that never came. The civilians were gently but firmly pushed away from the barriers. The police and the feds were all that were left inside the now cubical shape that kept them all boxed in.

"I assume you have standing orders to investigate everything that I did here?" He asked the lead fed, an older looking fellow.

"Yes, Agent Fauley here. I must say that it is an honor to meet you, Mr.Sullivan. You are a hero to the American people. My superiors would love to meet you."

He rolled his eyes at the incessant flattery. Honestly, was there no end to these people?

"Save it. I have a couple of mind control victims in the diner behind me. It goes without saying that I have apprehended the criminal responsible for their current conditions but the victims themselves have to be treated,"

"Rest assured, the FBI will spare no expense–"

"Don't worry about the cure itself. I know how to cure them myself. I just need to make sure that they are safe while I go and get the cure. Now, I emphasise on the returning part because I will come back for them and if something were to have happened in the time I was away, I will personally hold every single person in the chain of command responsible?"

The Fed looked at him with stunned eyes, his jaw agape at the naked threat that had been delivered to him.

"Now, see you!" He said as a portal opened up in front of him as he entered the mirror dimension. He was not sure if it was the right decision or not but he needed to make sure that all these people were safe and sound.

Also, it was a nice way of testing if his agreement with the President was followed through or not.

During the "chat" that he had with the Secretary, he had straight up told the President that unless and until the upper echelons of the US government and the Army continued to treat enhanced people like a bomb waiting to go off, they would not receive an ounce of support from the Invisible Man, be it political or physical.

The Secretary had confirmed that POTUS was amenable to such an agreement and in fact, was considering building a specialised American team, probably like a state sanctioned Avengers Team.

The people got a safe place to stay while he pondered on alternatives to cure them. He might have to, once and for all, figure out if Wakanda, or rather Shuri and T'Challa can be truly trusted or not.

Their past actions left a lot to be desired but having Wakanda as an ally would allow him to exercise his powers a lot better than if he tried to go completely solo. 

Once he was sure that these people were all going to be safe, he might pop back to Wakanda and take the tour that was promised to him by two different generations of the Royal Family of Wakanda.

He opened another portal and pulled a tablet through it, the generic kind. He kept the portal open so that he could get wifi even as he continued to follow the convoy that the FBI was using to transport the victims to a facility upstate.

In the tablet, he finally used the lull to catch up with all the events that had happened in the two years he had gone. 

Well, for one, the events of Thor : Dark World had already passed. The massive wreckages in London were proof of that. Now, all that was left was to see if the government salvaged something useful from it or not. Also, that also gave him a clue as to why Heimdall was not responding to him, not now and not even during his tenure in Collector's prison.

Loki had already probably replaced Odin and was now doing a terrible job of ruling Asgard, something that he dreamed of ever since he fell into the Void.

He watched as the feds made arrangements, the finest arrangements for the victims. Of Course, Jessica Jones was conspicuously absent from the list of victims. 

Her powers made her a prime target for people looking to exploit her powers. Also, she was exposed to Kilgrave's powers for a lot longer than others so he had no idea if she could fight it off on her own or not. In case she did not, she could become quite a threat to others.

Not that she was bulletproof like Luke Cage but she was quite a threat on her own, what with her ability to glide through air. She could probably fly as well, maybe, it was a mental limiter.

Satisfied with the current situation, expecting the thorough blood testing that would conveniently be "misplaced" during testing. That was fine if the people themselves were kept safe.

He was sure that was going to be the case so he opened a portal to the spaceship given to him and entered the medical chamber to see Jessica Jones in yet another medical pod, the pod having put her into a medically induced coma as the machine worked on identifying the differences in her brain.

He didn't know if Kilgrave's powers could physically affect people's brains but it never hurt to check.

He took a seat as the pod told him it would take a little less than an hour to map the entire thing, the human brain being very complicated even to alien technology.

Word Count - 2629

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